On one hand I want to talk about this movie, because I have a lot to say about it. but on the other, I really don’t want to spoil anything for you, as I think this is a movie you should go out and see. It’s also a movie steeped in mystery as to what is actually going on. I would applaud the trailers for not spoiling anything, however after watching the movie, they basically spoil everything you just don’t realize it yet.
That’s fitting since this movie tells you right away what is going on, you just don’t notice it yet or realize it until the film sits you down and shows you.
So I’m torn, do I spoil everything like every other movie review I’ve done or should I show restraint and hold back a few details. Can I properly do that and still give a film analyst point of view. There’s a few things I want to bring up, but those things dive a bit into spoiler territory.
Well, let’s just see how long I can dance around it without spoiling it for you.
If you’ve seen this director’s other film Barbarian, you know kind of what to expect, a mashing of a few genres.
Weapons is a drama, but it’s also a horror movie but it’s also a comedy as the ending had me laughing my ass off, cheering for what was happening.
It reminded me a lot of the ending to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Where you’re cheering for the brutal violence and just absurdity of it all.
Speaking of a Tarantino film, Weapons is told in a nonlinear style much like Pulp Fiction, where it would focus on one character, then switch to another going back to a previous event to shed light on something that happened earlier.
I can’t say I was too crazy with how it would constantly cut off from a character’s POV as soon as something would happen. And then we’d follow a new character, building up their story. It really does take the air out of your horror movie, and it happens pretty often.
The director, Zach Cregger likes to use themes a lot, in this film the theme is parasites. It isn’t hammering you over the head with it, but it’s there if you notice it.
This movie has an assembled cast of Marvel characters. We got Thanos, female Silver Surfer, and Wong. But at this point it’s going to be hard not to find a movie not have a cast of actors from superhero movies.
One thing I couldn’t figure out was the fact this movie is narrated by a little girl. We never see or get introduced to this little girl, she’s just there to tell you the audience what has happened is this small town.
So what did happen?
At 2:17 AM, 17 children got up from their beds and ran out the door, disappearing into the night. We know it was 2:17 AM because those with security cameras or even Ring Doorbells caught them.
And the movie is more or less about how this strange event effected some people in this small town.
The first perspective we get is with the teacher of the classroom the 17 kids disappeared from.
Oh, I forget to mention every kid but one vanished that night. That is actually super important to the plot, so I have no idea how I can even tell that kid’s perspective when the time comes.
Julia Garner plays Justine, the teacher in question, a very flawed person, and the town pariah, since the town wants answers and it was her classroom the kids vanished from.
She has a bit of a drinking problem, expedited by the stressful situation. She also has a bit of a reputation of sleeping around, none of this has anything to do with the kids missing.
She is put on leave by principal Marcus, played by Doctor Strange actor Wong, whose real name is also Wong I’m just now finding out.
She goes to a town meeting where she is mostly yelled at, spearheaded by a very angry Archer, played by Josh Brolin.
He is the father of one of the missing kids and he suspects Justine knows something.
Wong escorts Justine out of the town meeting as things heat up. Later that night she gets a harassing phone call and someone vandalizes the side of her car with paint.
To get away from her troubles, she calls up her ex, a local cop who we will also be following shortly.
It’s clear Justine is very drunk and her ex Paul, played by Han Solo, who actually is also in the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that I think about it, showing up on the terrible series Iron Heart playing the son of Jeff Bridges’ character from Iron Man.
Paul is married, but that doesn’t stop him from having a fling with Justine. He’s a terrible liar and immediately tells his wife what happens, getting Justine attacked in the liquor store.
You might be thinking, so this is a horror movie right? Like where is all the horror stuff?
The horror stuff is there, it just takes its sweet time to get to it. We do get some fake out jump scare dream sequences. Usually I’m very hard on films that rely on this as it’s a cheap way to add horror elements into a movie that otherwise wouldn’t have anything.
Like for example The Boy, nothing but jump scares. And more recently, The Substance.
But the dream sequences in Weapons have a point to them. You aren’t just randomly getting them to get a quick scare, it is plot related. But since I swore I wouldn’t spoil anything, I’m going to leave that reason in the shadows to jump out at you later.
One last thing I will say though, Justine’s dream jump scare was the only thing in the movie that got me.
Wanting to talk to her only remaining student, Justine follows Alex home. But things are very weird there, as all the windows to his house are blocked by newspaper.
Curious, Justine checks around back. In the trailers they released, they do show this, but they show you her looking at a different scene than what is in the movie.
What she sees are Alex’s parents sitting silently on the couch in the dark, just staring off into nothing.
That’s very peculiar, the girl doing the voice over did however mention the cops questioned not only Alex extensively, but also searched his home. So what is going on?
Eventually we switch to another perspective, but I can’t remember who. I want to say it’s Archer next.
Basically with him we see he isn’t taking his son’s disappearance very well, choosing to sleep in his son’s bed, watching the security footage of him running away on repeat.
He too gets a dream sequence, but I won’t go too in-depth about it, since it was so dark I wasn’t really sure what fully happened anyway.
That is one thing I have to take points away for, a few night scenes are so dark, it’s impossible to see anything.
It’s also revealed that Archer is the one who has been harassing Justine, being the one who vandalized her car with paint. I wouldn’t say this is a spoiler as he seemed pretty obsessed with her, so it came to the shock of no one when they reveal it was him.
The only meaningful thing about his story, is he triangulates the path the kids might have all taken, but isn’t sure where it intersects.
Switching to Paul’s POV, we see he’s kind of a loser cop who misses drinking and hates his wife. His boss, the police chief is also his father in-law. Who clearly just tolerates him since he is married to his daughter.
While on patrol, he runs down a junkie trying to break into a building, as he chases after him and cuffs him, his gets stuck by one of the junkie’s needles, resulting in him sucker punching him to the side of the face.
He lets the junkie go, but warns him that he’ll be arrested if he sees him again.
Later that night he meets up with Justine and our two stories intersect.
The next POV is the junkie, who actually finds the kids while trying to steal something to buy drugs.
He later seen there’s a reward posted for the whereabouts of the missing children, but before he can tell the police, he is caught by Paul who I’m pretty sure was going to blow his head off with a shotgun.
The only thing that gets him to stop is telling him he knows where the kids are.
Why he would believe this guy, I have no idea, as he has lied about almost everything he has ever said to him. But he takes a chance and the two go to the location.
So we are finally at the part where I doubt I can continue without diving into spoilers. And seeing as this review is a bit too short for my liking. The rest of this review will be spoilers.
First my rating to those about to click away. I give Weapons a SEE IT rating. This is one I don’t think is necessary to see in theaters, I don’t know if it’s one worth a repeat watch, but it was good enough that one viewing.
Now that is out of the way, time for SPOILERS!
………………………..
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I’ll first start out with explaining what was painted on the side of Justine’s car.
Witch.
A pretty dead giveaway, letting you know almost at the start of the film what is going on.
In everyone nightmares, we also see visions of this creepy clown looking old lady who was reminding me a lot of Pennywise from IT.
She is our witch character, infiltrating the dreams of those who might get in her way. What is her goal exactly?
Remember when I said this film’s theme is parasites?
This witch is like a parasite, sneaking its way into Alex’s family, draining them of their life essence because she is sick and dying.
This is the part where the film doesn’t hold your hand, you need to pay attention to things and if you miss it, too bad because they aren’t going to explain it. Usually I like that kind of thing, but it can lead to some confusion, like 1, how she gains control over her victims and 2, how she uses them like weapons. Hence the title of the movie.
To gain control, she needs an object that belongs to the person. Because Alex’s parents aren’t enough to keep her alive, she tells him that she’ll do horrible things to his parents if he doesn’t obey, giving him a demonstration by making his parents poke their faces to a folk violently until he agrees to help.
She needs an item from every kid in his class, seeing every cubicle has a personally drawn name tag on it, by the students.
At 2:17, the witch performs her ritual, summoning the kids with a bell.
What got confusing was how she used people as weapons, as it took wrapping a strand of hair around a thorny stick, breaking it to send her attack dogs after who ever the hair belonged to.
We get that example a bit further in when she visits Wong and his husband. What got a scene earlier with the witch visiting the school, needing Alex’s parents to come in and have a meeting.
While they are talking, she focuses on some awards on the table. So my guess is, she took one of those awards, did her ritual but doesn’t activate him with the bell until she is there in the house.
While at his house she snips a bit of Wong’s husband’s hair, using the branch to force Wong to bash his husband’s face in. It’s pretty horrific to see, as he completely caves his face in. She then puts him on Justine’s scent.
Justine and Archer are having an argument in the gas station when Wong runs up and tries to kill her.
With the help of Archer, she manages to get away with Wong running after her, but gets smashed into by a car, spilling his brains everywhere.
From the junkie’s perspective we follow him as he tries to get a fix, stealing and trying to break into whatever he can to pawn for some cash.
He notices how abandoned Alex’s house looks, so he breaks in, finding Alex’s zombie-like parents sitting there on the couch, not moving an inch.
He sneaks into the basement where he finds all the missing children. He panics and takes off, later wanting to get the reward for finding them.
He gets chased by our loser cop Paul, who goes to investigate the house alone, coming back out hours later, now under the witch’s spell.
After that we come back to Justine and Archer who are now working together after she was attacked by Wong. They figure out that everything leads to Alex’s house.
The only perspective I haven’t gone into is Alex. He is the hero of this story, but doesn’t get as much screen time as the others since move of him would mean spoiling everything early.
We learn that he’s kind of a quiet kid, and is getting picked on at school by a bully, who you just know is Archer’s kid.
One day his mom’s long lost aunt comes to stay, if this witch is actually related to them who knows.
The thing about parasites, there’s no real reason they need to choose something to infect. If it wasn’t this family, it would have been someone, somewhere else.
It’s actually pretty subtle but we see how the witch gets better through her hair. When we first see her, she’s bald, then as she gets Alex’s parents under her control, draining them of their life essence, we see little strands of white hair.
Eventually she can even put them into braids. But the parents aren’t enough, like any witch, she needs kids to feed on. And by the climax of the movie she has a pretty big set of hair.
While Justine and Archer are outside Alex’s home, Paul all zombie-like, calls them over. A clear trap but they walk right into it.
The witch knows it’s time to flee town, it’s hinted at that she’s been around a long time, so she’s most likely done this very same thing numerous times.
She lays out a line of salt, if you break that line, her attack dogs, the weaponized people under her spell, will viciously attack you.
Here is where the issue with lighting comes in, as the house is pitch black and you can’t see much happening.
The junkie attacks Archer and Paul attacks Justine. Paul gets shot and killed but honestly I don’t know what happened to the junkie.
I’m not sure if he got shot as well, or knocked out…
Alex grabs the witch’s wig and uses her own magic against her, using a few loose hairs to turn all the children against her.
I love this scene, it had me cracking up, unable to hide my joy as we see these kids chase after her, crashing through houses and windows. The terrified look on her face was priceless.
Eventually they catch up to her and brutal and I mean brutally pull her apart. It’s glorious.
And the movie kind of just ends. In the little girl’s final voice over, she mentions that Alex’s parents were a lost cause, as too much was drained from them but some of the kids got better and could even talk again.
To recap, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, the ending is a blast and unlike 28 Years Later, actually worked.
I don’t know if Weapons has much repeat watch factor, but it is worth seeing at least once. So SEE IT!
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